Once
by JumpinPopTarts
Summary: HBP Spoilers! On the night of Dumbledore's death, Harry and Draco stumble alone into the Forbidden Forest, bruised, battered and forced to confront a world entirely changed, with no one to turn to but each other. For Windschatten!


++++++++ONCE+++++++++++

By JumpinPopTarts

**This is a request from Windschatten69!**

You asked for Drarry around the death of Dumbledore… and I tried my best! The only bit I left out that you requested was about Harry not being under the freezing charm. The reason why is that it seemed a bit wrong to have them romancing in the Astronomy Tower when Dumbedore falls, so I fiddled with the facts a little bit and brought them away from the castle, thus negating the need for freezing charms. Hope that's okay. :-S

Anyway! This is what came out, so I really hope you like it!

**Rated T for two swears and boyxboy things. ; P**

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_Harry, who was horrified by the result of his duel with Draco in the bathroom incident, feels compassion for his enemy when he __realises__ that he was forced to do Voldemort's bidding under the threat of his and his parents' deaths. As revealed during his confrontation with Dumbledore, Draco was an insecure, terrified boy incapable of committing cold-blooded murder. - Wikipedia_

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"What the _fuck_ are you doing?" Draco's hands were cold as they gripped him but his eyes were colder still, digging deep into his soul like hooks of ice. The wand was still clenched in his hand and Harry knew that all it would take would be one small flick, and he would be finished.

But he also knew, with a crazy kind of certainty, that Malfoy was beyond hurting him now.

He was beyond hurting anyone.

"Doing what Snape should have done long ago." Harry spat back at him "Saving your miserable skin."

The castle grounds were icy that night; the air hissing in their ears as they ran, tendrils sneaking beneath their sleeves and collars until they were cold to the core. Draco stumbled more than once, his eyes glassy with exhaustion, but Harry would not slow down. They staggered across the open grounds, keeping to the shade wherever possible; the black needles left by the tallest towers, the dappled hollows beneath the trees at the fringe of the forbidden forest…again and again Harry cursed himself for leaving his invisibility cloak in Hogwarts, but that couldn't be helped now. The time for going back for it, for going back at all, had long since passed.

He could feel Draco pressed tight against his shoulder, close enough to feel the curve of ribs against his arm, to see the deep lines beneath his cheekbones out of the corner of his eye.

_Bloody Hell_. _Had Snape let him _starve_ too?_

Pity coiled like poison in his gut. No. No pity. Pity made him weak, made him tired. If he felt pity then he could not feel the hate; hate for hand that had almost killed Dumbledore, his mentor, father and friend. Hate for the mouth that had dared to voice the forbidden curse. And, strongest of all, the hate for that same hand and that same mouth, who, after everything, had failed. Draco had not killed Dumbledore. Instead the greatest man in Wizarding history had died degraded and defeated; pleading at Snape's slimy feet.

_Severus…please…_

Harry drew in a sharp breath, freezing air scouring into the depths of his lungs, and pushed Draco on a little further, under the canopy of the Forbidden Forest. Dimly, he saw Draco's face crumple with pain and tears. He always had been quick to cry, but this time Harry felt no scorn. Instead his mind flashed back, as it would many times again, to the Astronomy Tower, to the flare of forbidden curse and the lonely, silent figure toppling to the unforgiving ground below.

They had all earned the right to cry tonight. He thought; Draco most of all.

Snape had tried to slip away with Draco once he had been sure that Dumbledore was dead. Harry wouldn't have noticed had it not been for the latter; who had yelled aloud when the potion master's claw had closed around his wrist. On hearing that cry, a strange, inexpressible heat had flared through Harry's body, chasing away the leaden grief that was already settling there. The grief would return, he knew it, but in that second he'd clung to the fire; that strange sensation of hope and anger and resolve.

_Was he the Chosen One for nothing?_ Something deep in his brain had demanded. _Did he not have the power to bring good from evil? Hope from defeat? Life from a world of so much death? _

That was why he had thrown Snape's hand away. That was why he had taken Draco, kicking and cursing, for himself and fled into the darkness of Hogwarts where even the Death Eaters could not find them.

Because something good was going to come of this night.

Something was going to help him find hope. Faith. A future.

Something was worth saving in this horrible, twisted mess.

And that thing was Draco's soul.

Draco fell again as they reached the safety of the trees. This time Harry let him; turning away from his ragged breath and streaming eyes to check their surroundings. They were in a small clearing, but a well-sheltered one; safe from anyone searching by air and cocooned with enough bracken to deter most of the Forbidden Forest's creatures. Draco sat a few metres away in a pool of moonlight, tears already gone. His silver hair glowed like a halo; his haggard face shadowed as a skull.

"Get up." Harry said, his expression unreadable in the semi-darkness. Draco obeyed stiffly, refusing to meet his eyes. When he stood he held himself in a way Harry had never noticed before; gone was the square-shouldered strut of a pampered school bully. Instead, his whole frame curved protectively inwards; like a kicked dog poised to run.

"Planning to drag me to Azkaban on foot, Potter?"

"No." Harry's voice was calm. "You're bleeding."

"So?"

"So, I'm going to stop it and the light's better over here. Come on, Malfoy, I didn't do all this to watch you bleed to death."

"Well, that's one possibility struck off my list." Draco muttered, but he obeyed, hobbling over and lowering himself to the ground at Harry's feet. His left leg lay awkwardly out in front of him, a long tear visible through the expensive fabric of his trousers. Both of them winced as Harry peeled the fabric free, Draco in pain and Harry as his hands came away red with blood.

One of the Death Eaters had fired a curse at them as they fled, some more precise form of sectumsempra, no doubt. It had torn a gash as long as Harry's hand in Draco's calf. Presumably, it had been meant to stop them from running far, and, judging by the depth, should have been pretty effective. Harry remembered the pace at which he had hauled Draco through the grounds and winced again.

He reached inside his robes and pulled out a small leather wrap-bag, usually used by artists to carry their paints. Inside was sterilized needle and thread, cleaning fluid, plasters, painkillers and several rolls of white bandage. He still had his wand, but, with his blood pounding furiously in his ears, he did not trust himself to use it.

"It's from Hermione." He explained, seeing Draco's suspicious glare "She's made me carry one since second year, when the Basilisk nearly ripped my arm off." He set to work quickly, dabbing off the worst of the blood and dirt and sewing the wound shut. "I can still hear her now; _If you're stupid enough to nearly get yourself killed every year, you might as well be able to patch yourself up afterwards._"

"D…efinitely sounds…like Granger." Draco said through gritted teeth, as Harry wound the bandage around his leg. Luckily, the blood didn't seem to be coming through as rapidly now, and after a few more minutes of silent work, Harry tied off the dressing and sat back.

"It's done." He said, putting the medical kit away and checking his handiwork.

"I suppose you want some kind of payment?" Draco's tone was dry, but he was watching Harry carefully, as though calculating his reaction.

"Thanks would be enough." but Harry's eyes gave him away. He would be lying if he said he hadn't considered what _else_ he could ask for should they be alone like this and Draco so vulnerable. He was a red-blooded teenager after all.

And Draco had changed a lot since First Year.

Besides, Crabbe, Pansy and Goyle weren't the only fans that Draco had accumulated in his time at Hogwarts, and it hadn't been his quick wit and kind heart that had drawn people to him.

Even like this, exhausted and beaten, Draco glowed like a candle in the gloom. His body was lean to the point of elegance, his face a form of rare aristocratic beauty, like a classic painting, that drew eyes like moths to a flame. Even his temper had recently come to spark something within Harry, who had found himself wondering on more than one occasion how that fiery passion would translate in the privacy of a bedroom.

His hand moved across Draco's wound to check the ties on the bandage. With the thought still lingering in his head, Harry made the movement slower and gentler than it needed to have been, almost a caress. Draco, ever astute, read his mind immediately.

"…Oh." He said, the word hanging feebly between them. Harry's pulse quickened as he detected no anger or revulsion. If anything, he sounded saddened…

All hope died, though, as he met Draco's eyes. The soft grey was quickly chilling into a steely gleam; surprise replaced with a mute mask of fury. He scrambled to his feet, pulling Harry with him. Harry had forgotten the different between their heights. He remembered it now with awful clarity as Draco loomed over him, anger resonating in every shift of his body. Their faces were so close that Harry could see each individual eyelash, smell the strange sweetness of his skin and the harsh puffs of breath against his cheek.

"_Oh_! So _this _was your real motive?" Draco hissed "Patch up the poor invalid and get a quick shag for the bargain? How fucking _noble_!" His lips twisted around the words, warped with hate.

"What _would_ all your fans say, Potter? You, the _Hero of the Wizarding world_? They think you're such a_ saint_, such a _martyr _but now I know you're no better than the rest of them!" His hands reached out and cupped Harry's face, long fingers tangling in his hair. "Is this what you want?" He spat. "My '_thanks_'? Payment in body? A _pound of flesh_? Is it? Is it? Look. Here. Have it." With a jerk, Draco tightened his grip and pressed their mouths together.

The kiss was nothing like Harry had imagined in the sticky heat of the Gryffindor dormitory. It was stiff and bruising, the fingers at the nape of his neck like marble, the slim waist firm as a marionette's beneath his palm. It was difficult and awkward, fuelled with hatred and love and longing and loathing and horror and happiness and---

--and Harry had never felt anything so beautiful in his life.

Why? Because that kiss had been the most honest thing Harry had felt for such a long time. It hid nothing; he could taste Draco's every emotion; hatred for the kissed and disgust at the kisser; fear of death; grief at recent loss; exhaustion from injury; stiff resignation from years of snuffing shouts and clawing back tears…

But it wasn't only that. In letting Harry have the full force of his hate, Draco had thrown open another, more secret door. No one could have faked the desire that burned beneath those lips; the eagerness at which they coaxed his apart, as though Draco too had played through a similar scene in his head. Many times over.

How long had they kept this secret? How many nights had they lain in their beds alone, and thought of each other, unreachable through wall after wall of stone and rules and reputation?

But the walls did not exist anymore. The innocence, the obedience, of their schooldays had died with Dumbledore. Now they stood alone, in a limbo out of which they had to shape a new world. There weren't rules here; no reasonableness, no grey areas. Just black and white. Light and Dark. Fire and Ice.

Love and Loathing.

"I hate you, Potter." Draco hissed through his teeth, his hands groping for the clasp to Harry's robes. "I hate you so _much_ I could bash your brains out against this tree." A column of bark hit Harry in the spine, hard enough to make him gasp. Instantly, Draco was there, catching Harry's cry in his own mouth, pressing close with hands and lips that trembled with desperate fever. "I could kill you where you stand and laugh at your bones." Harry's cape was forced apart and yanked over his shoulders, Draco's fingers scrabbling beneath, under his jumper, towards the zip of his fly.

"…hate you." He murmured again, and again between kisses. "hate you hate you hateyouhateyou_hate_you-" His hands were white in the darkness, racing across Harry's body like spiders, pushing, pulling, tugging, teasing, trying to find a way beneath his clothes, to life and heat and soft, vulnerable flesh-

Harry's hands came from nowhere, closing Draco's wrists in a hold that was both gentle and firm enough to quell any efforts of escape. Warm palms held flesh as dead as ivory, chafing life and heat back into them. Harry saw the hairs on Draco's forearms rise, the desperation in his eyes fading into fear and, beneath that, a horrible, broken resignation that chilled him deeper than the night ever could.

What kind of life must he have lead, these past few years? What kind of existence had caused him to tangle hate and lust? To cheapen love into a sordid currency? What kind of people had fostered that distortion, until only this hollow was left where a strong, intelligent and handsome man should have stood?

Draco was shaking again. He pulled weakly at Harry's hands, not because he lacked the physical strength, but because, beneath his skin, it was taking all that strength to hold the rest of him together.

"Stop." Harry murmured, then, not giving himself time to think why, he leaned up to press a soft kiss on Draco's brow. He let it linger, letting him sense the difference between it and the hard, hasty things that he could still feel on his own face. "Stop, Draco."

Draco jerked like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His hands fell away, the fire in his eyes dulling instantly to embers. In that moment a terrible sadness rushed between them, all the hatred and guilt and anger and unspeakable grief. Their eyes met, and something tightened between them, pulled taut, then shattered into a million tiny pieces.

"I hate you." Draco told him again, though there was nothing in his voice but sadness.

"I know." Harry told him, with words that shook and hands that trembled in the moonlight. "But I don't hate you."

Slowly, carefully, as though making amends with a Hippogriff and not a terrified teenager, Harry reached out and pulled Draco close. His arms wrapped around shaking shoulders, trapping those white hands, now still, between their chests. Their hearts beat together, barely a palm's breadth apart. One pulse flowed between them, in and out, round in a slow, soothing circle. They stood like that until the sky began to pale above them, time flowing around them like a half-imagined dream.

Harry did not try to kiss Draco again. Not that night, nor the morning after when they emerged from the Forbidden Forest to a flurry of questions, admonishments and hugs from wan friends who had spent the night worrying.

Shortly after that, Draco _did _disappear with Snape and Harry became so involved in the war that the two of them did not speak for almost a year. The disgrace of the Malfoy family soon after pulled them even further apart. By the time they stood on Platform 9 3/4 again, nineteen years had passed and they were adults, parents….almost strangers.

On that morning, their eyes met across the crowd, two still things in a hive of warmth and voices. Harry paused, his hand still on Al's shoulder, and for a moment he could hear wind sighing through treetops, smell pine needles and the sweet scent of warm breath against his cheek.

There were new lines on Draco's face now, but is eyes were as silver as ever. In that moment, Harry knew their thoughts were the same.

Remembering something that could never have been, but would never be forgotten.

That, once, something good had come from a night of terror.

Once, something had helped Harry to find hope.

Once, something had been worth saving from a horrible, twisted world

Once, that thing had been Draco.

And now, as a secret smile flickered between the two of them, Harry knew that, for the two of them at least, 'once' would last forever.

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_Gosh this one was hard work. Draco just wasn't playing ball, so I hope I managed to keep him in character. Also, it is really angsty; but you'd hardly expect a tea party when Dumbledore's just died! : )_

A/N: For the purists that dislike Draco quoting Shakespeare…well….I always thought Shakespeare would make a pretty good wizarding playwright anyway! heheeee

**More requests are gladly welcomed, as are comments of any kind**!


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